The North South Foundation  held its national convention at MIT on the labor day weekend. The event was intense with the brightest Indian American youngsters from all over the country competing for the top spot in thirteen different contests. In addition to competitions the event also held several panel discussions to help inspire youngsters along the academic career path.

The north south foundation is a unique charity where registration money from participants is used to fund scholarships for underpriviledged people in India. The participants hugely from the training and preparation that recieve from the NSF contests. Winners of the contests have gone on to win the National Spelling Bee , Geography Bee and other contests.

The parents of the students serve as volunteers and work very hard to coordinate events that are held in several cities around the country. "If we total up the volunteer time spent on these contests and put a dollar value to them, it would come to aroun 2.5 million dollars a year. Collection from participants via registration is only 230,000 dollars, a bargain indeed for the participants" said Dr. Ratnam Chitturi who is one of the founding members of this organization.  The Boston team including Madhavi and Gaugarin Oliver, Durga Rao, Geeta and Govindan , Anita and Murali Rajagopalan and others did a phenomenal job in managing the logistics for the three day weekend.

"We learned so much from this event. The college workshop by Dr. Anil Saigal was very insightful. We also learned a lot from parents like Sunil Iyer whose children have achieved so much success. We have come from New Orleans. For us this trip was part of the evacuvation.  We are honored that our child participated in the event" said a couple who moved to New Orleans from India only six years earlier.

Lokvani Congratulates the winners and the participants.

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